Moving pictures or movies as it is called for short, were made by entrepreneurs to entertain the people for a profit. It became a powerful media to convey the masses into a different world, away from the reality of daily life. Towards the 1930's, it morphed into one of the best propaganda tools by governments to sway and instill ideas to its citizens. Ask yourself this question the next time in the movies, either it was made for propaganda or entertainment?............AMOR PATRIAE

OLD WAR MOVIES

OLD WAR MOVIES

...The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy.

Friday, April 18, 2014

An American Odyssey

An American Odyssey

These postcards are the first colour photographs taken of the New World, capturing the majesty of the American landscape, from buzzing city scenes to the dramatic Grand Canyon.

Dating back to the late 19th century and early 20th century, they have been released from a private collection especially to celebrate travel through the US in a book entitled An American Odyssey.

The photographs were taken between 1888 and 1924 and were made into postcards celebrating cities, landscapes and everyday life across the country.

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The Big Apple: Mulberry Street, the main thoroughfare in Manhattan, is brought to life with the photochrom process, showing the varying ethnicity of New Yorkers and a glimpse at their everyday lives

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Traditions: Members of the Seminole Tribe in Florida - whose history dates back to the early 1500s - are depicted in the dugout canoes in their elegant dress

Many of the images are produced using a photochrom process, taking black and white negatives and filling them with colour by transferring them onto lithographic printing stones.

Another process used was phostint, a way of tinting black and white and sepia images which was used by companies - including what was then known as the London Daily Mail - to print colour postcards of important events, such as scenes from the First World War. These spectacular postcards are from a private collection amassed by graphic designer, photographer, and collector Marc Walter. He specialises in vintage travel photographs and has one of the world's largest collections.

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Rainbow effect: The Grand Canyon is shown in all its glory with greens, rich reds and purples depicted by the photochrom technique

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On track: Transport is a dominant theme throughout the images, showing America at the cutting edge of technology

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Laundry day: This unusual picture shows a Monday in New York City, when the streets were filled with clean washing being aired among the buildings

These particular images were produced by the Detroit Photographic Company at the turn of the century, combining landscapes with human interest images for city dwellers, immigrants and even gold rushers and the last Wild West cowboys.

The 612-page hardback book, published by Taschen, is a celebration of America and is considered a journey through its later 19th and early 20th-century landscapes and will go on sale for £135.

Photos include a busy city scene on the busy thoroughfare of Mulberry Street in New York, while another contrasts dramatically, capturing the rural life of a Seminole Indian family sailing in their dugout canoes in Florida.

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Gold rush town: A glorious panorama shows the Californian city of San Francisco when it was still a relatively small settlement

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Southern life: A magnolia plantation is shown in bloom on the edge of the Ashley River in Charleston with a local woman stood looking out over the water

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Feats of engineering: The Gerogetown Loop over Clear Creek Canyon in Colorado was hugely important to the nearby gold and silver mines at the start of the 20th century

An American Odyssey

A magnolia plantation on the Ashely River in Charleston is brought to life with the application of colour to the image, while the Grand Canyon is also shown shimmering with colour.

Transport is also a leading theme in the postcards, featuring spectacular train journeys crossing Clear Creek Canyon, on Georgetown Loop in Colorado and the Mount Lowe Railway, on the circular bridge in California.

Tourists can still ride on the Georgetown Loop railways, experiencing what life was like during the gold rush era, when everyone was trying to make their fortune.

And spectacular National Parks such as the Grand Canyon still draw crowds, with millions of visitors every year.

Children gathering potatoes on a large farm. Vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Saying grace before the barbeque dinner at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Homesteader and his children eating barbeque at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Hauling crates of peaches from the orchard to the shipping shed. Delta County, Colorado, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building. Washington, D.C.(?), between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photographer Unknown. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

A welder who works in the round-house at the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company's Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, December 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

General view of part of the South Water Street freight depot of the Illinois Central Railroad Chicago, Illinois, May 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Mrs. Viola Sievers, one of the wipers at the roundhouse giving a giant "H" class locomotive a bath of live steam. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress #

Rural school children. San Augustine County, Texas, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The Golden Gate Bridge was opened to vehicular traffic on this day in 1937 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington DC. Construction on the bridge began on January 5, 1933 and lasted a little more than four years, costing more than $35 million. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed the bridge by foot.

High in the fog, structural steel workers staged the traditional ceremony of raising flags when the structural steel work on the Marin County Towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco was completed, May 4, 1934. Group of steel workers atop one of the two towers which rise 734 feet above the water. (AP Photo) #

U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, center, wears a steel helmet during an inspection tour of the San Francisco tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, Ca., March 25, 1935. Perkins, who is the first female cabinet officer in American history, talks with G.A. McClain, bridge superintendent, left, and S.E. Stanley, rivet foreman. (AP Photo) #

Workers install the first section of a huge safety net, at a cost of $98,000, that will extend from shore to shore beneath the Golden Gate Bridge span during construction of the bridge in San Francisco, Ca., Sept. 2, 1935. (AP Photo) #

Workmen wearing steel helmets lay the catwalks for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Ca., Sept. 19, 1935. Spinning of the big suspension cables will start after the two catwalks are laid high above the Golden Gate Strait. (AP Photo) #

Preparations for spinning the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge between Marin Country and San Francisco occupied crews October 10, 1935. They were busy erecting storm cable system, telephone system and various units of the spinning equipment for the $35,000,000 structure. The cable, stretching from the tower in the foreground to the Marin Country or North side, will be 36 1/2 inches in diameter. The Catwalks with some of the storm cables is shown. (AP Photo) #

Workers at the top of the tower, which will support the $35,000,000 suspension bridge, are shown during construction of one of the catwalks for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Ca., Oct. 17, 1935. Below in background is the Marin County shore, which will be connected to San Francisco by the bridge. (AP Photo) #

The USS New Jersey BB-62 battleship, carrying Gen. Walter Krueger and crew aboard, glides under the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco, Ca. on Feb. 10, 1946. The United States Navy battleship is a veteran of Pacific Warfare. (AP Photo) #

This is a close up of one of the nearly completed cables which will hold up the floor of the $32,500,000 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Ca., May 4, 1936. Approximately 27,500 steel wires are in each cable, which are 36 1/2 inches in diameter and 7,700 feet long. The bridge spans the entrance to San Francisco harbor and joins the city with Marin County. (AP Photo) #

Workmen with an intricate mechanism swung high above the rocky shores of San Francisco's Golden Gate on June 6,1936. The workmen are typing together the myriad strands of the 36 1/2 inch cables that will support the Golden Gate Bridge. (AP Photo) #

Workmen assist the derrick operator, chief engineer Joseph Strauss, in joining the center of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Ca., Nov. 18, 1936. The bridge has a main span of 4,200 feet, 1,280 meters, making it the world's longest suspension structure. (AP Photo) #

Ed Stanley drives the golden rivet to mark the completion of the $35,000,000 Golden Gate Bridge spanning the entrance to San Francisco Bay, Ca., April 29, 1937. Holding the rivet is Ed Murphy and leaning over them is Joseph B. Strauss, chief engineer of the project. The bridge will be opened to the public May 27. (AP Photo) #

This is a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, linking San Francisco's Fort Point to Marin County, as it looked when it opened to pedestrians, May 27, 1937. The next day it officially opened to vehicular traffic. (AP Photo/Redwood Empire Association) #

The U.S. Navy joined with San Francisco in celebration of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, May 30, 1937. A naval vessel had just passed under the world's longest suspension span, which crosses the famed entrance to San Francisco Bay. (AP Photo) #

San Francisco is resting comfortable on June 5, 1949 after a hot 4th of July holiday. With the Marin County hills in the background, the Golden Gate Bridge is partially obscured by the fog blanket. The incoming fog lowered the temperature by 23 degrees to a comfortable 69. (AP Photo) #

General viewed of the over-crowded Mission district of San Francisco April 27, 1950. (Mission Street runs diagonally across the foreground from lower left to right center.) The building with a long row of vertical windows at upper right is the U.S. Mint, and upper left are the towers of the Golden Gate bridge. The highest point of Mt. Tamalpias across the Golden Gate in Marin County is just above the left tower. (AP Photo/EK Bennett) #

Bill Gaure, maintenance worker on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, nears the top of the north tower after nearly a half-mile uphill hike from the center of the span, May 15, 1952. In the background, at center, is a residential area of San Francisco, and at upper left is part of the Presidio. The bridge was built right where the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay meet. (AP Photo/Ernest K. Bennett) #

The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Boxer creeps through the fog under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as it arrives from Korean waters, Sept. 25, 1952. It was the Boxer from which the Navy launched drone aircraft for an attack on Communist concentrations in Korea. Aboard the ship were more than 2,500 men of Air group two. She will later go to Hunter's Point, a South San Francisco Naval Base for complete overhaul. (AP Photo) #

The battleship "Missouri" creeps under a fog enshrouded Golden Gate Bridge on Sept. 10, 1954, to begin a three day open house visit to his port city. The 58,000-ton vessel, aboard which the Japanese surrender was signed Sept. 2, 1945, was heading for the mothball fleet at Bremerton, Wash. (AP-Photo/U.S. Navy) #

A view of a portion of the Golden Gate Bridge was photographed from a Navy helicopter while covering the departure of the atomic powered submarine Woodrow Wilson on January 6, 1964. Beyond strands of bridge, is the Russian Hill and Pacific Heights apartment house skyline of San Francisco. (AP Photo / Robert Houston) #

The scenic view at Ford Point was a wet one after a Pacific storm with winds gusting to more than 55 mph whipped through the Golden Gate in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1982. The storm toppled trees and left many Bay Area residents without power. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) #

An air-to-air front view of a C-5A Galaxy aircraft, in a camouflage paint scheme, as it flies over the San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge can be seen in the background. (Photo by USAF, Getty Images) #

The Californian, a revenue cutter replica, sails under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif., on May 24, 1987, as a parade of classic ships is kicked off to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge. (AP Photo/Sal Veder) #

A crowd estimated at 800,000 jams the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif., on May 24, 1987, as a walk is kicked off to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge that spans the San Francisco Bay. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) #

General view of the Southern footing of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point, San Francisco on November 17, 2002. Surfers congregate daily to surf at Fort Point and battle the harsh and dangerous conditions. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images) #

The Golden Gate Bridge is pictured December 20, 2006 in San Francisco, California. The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County as part of US Highway 101 and California State Highway 1. The largest suspension bridge in the world when it was completed in 1937, it has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and America. (GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images) #

The Golden Gate Bridge is visible through the fence and barbed wire surrounding the prison recreation yard as the sun sets on Alcatraz Island, 14 June 2007 in San Francisco Bay of California. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images) #

People line up to see Cunard's Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner in the world, as it sails under the Golden Gate Bridge into the San Francisco Bay February 4, 2007 in San Francisco, California. The Queen Mary 2 made her maiden port call after sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship would dock in San Francisco overnight before continuing on her first world cruise. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) #

An employee of The Marine Spill Response Corporation waits on a beach near the Golden Gate Bridge to put down a boon to protect from oil contamination November 8, 2007 in San Francisco, California. A container ship bumped into the San Francisco Bay Bridge November 7, 2007 spilling approximately 58,000 gallons of oil into bay waters. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images) #

People take part in an AIDS Lifecycle 27-mile bike ride from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge to Mill Valley on December 1, 2007 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images) #

Boats sail past the Golden Gate Bridge during the Spinnaker Cup on May 22, 2009 in San Francisco, California. The Spinnaker Cup, which is one of six regattas in the San Francisco 2009 IRC Championship Series, is a distance race that starts in San Francisco and finishes in Monterey, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

Athletes sail near the Golden Gate Bridge during day 1 of the US Windsurfing National Championships hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club on July 20, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

A view of suspender ropes and the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge on May 24, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District was preparing for the 75th anniversary of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The 1.7 mile steel suspension bridge, one of the modern Wonders of the World, opened to traffic on May 28, 1937. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) #

A spectator takes a photo of the Space Shuttle Endeavor as it flies on top of a modified 747 jumbo jet over the Golden Gate Bridge while traveling to Los Angeles on September 21, 2012 in Sausalito, California. The Space Shuttle Endeavor did a 4-1/2 hour tour over California landmarks before heading to Los Angeles International Airport where it would be prepared to be moved to its new permanent home at the California Science Center in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Land and water: The Liberty Street ferry in New York City on September 27, 1941

Horse and cart: Men and boys are seen collecting salvage on the Lower East Side on October 4, 1941

Daily life: This street seen from October 3, 1942, is just one from a huge collection by Charles W. Cushman

Pub: McSorley's Old Ale House, still open today, is pictured on East 7th Street on October 7, 1942

Compared: McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village today, hardly changed from the above photo

But what is even more intriguing are the street scenes and daily life Cushman documented in his photos, showing 1940s New Yorkers going about their daily business.

Pictures of children smiling for the camera, businessmen sitting down outside and street traders are a fascinating insight to what life was like in the city all those years ago.

Many of the areas have been demolished or rebuilt since they were pictured in 1941 and 1942.

But others such as McSorley’s Old Ale House in Manhattan’s East Village look almost identical now as they did back then, with the same store front and shop logo.

Park life: A suited man walks through Bowling Green in lower Manhattan on October 1, 1942

Smoking: Three homeless people from South Ferry doss houses are in Battery Park on June 6, 1941

Crossing: The East River is pictured below Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, on June 6, 1941

Around town: A portable soft drink stand at Bowling Green on October 1, 1942, left, and a Lower East Side street scene on September 27, 1941, right

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Moving pictures or movies as it is called for short, were made by entrepreneurs to entertain the people for a profit. It became a powerful media to convey the masses into a different world, away from the reality of daily life. Towards the 1930's, it morphed into one of the best propaganda tools by governments to sway and instill ideas to its citizens. Ask yourself this question the next time in the movies, either it was made for propaganda or entertainment?............AMOR PATRIAE

Gen. Gregorio del Pilar, P.A.

From morning till noon he repelled charge after charge tenaciously with a handful of men through the heat and agony of battle till he himself fell dead among his slain soldiers. It was on this mountain summit overlooking the plains and shores of his country a massive tremendous altar.....